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I play with the Necrons more than any other race.
At the beginning of the game you should build a generator with your first builder and while he is building it, start creating 2-3 squads of Necron Warriors(depending on the difficulty) and all of the builders. When each builder spawns, reinforce them and make them build generators. Use the last two spawned builder squads to build a Summoning Core and and capture points (of course, you can use any other builder squad once they are finished with building). Meanwhile, reinforce the Necron Warriors and place them in defence (for now). If you do not have him already, build the Necron Lord and his Tomb to upgrade him. When you have done that, upgrade the Monolith. Once it is upgraded, build a Greater Summoning Core and upgrade. When that's done, upgrade the Necron Warriors to max. in the Summoning Core. After that, upgrade Monolith second time, create more Warriors, Immortals and Pariahs and capture a Relic. Finally, upgrade Monolith to a mobile platform and attack.

I recommend to build generators as much as you can, you can carry on peacefully.

iv played soulstorm for years always teaming up with a friend on LAN and we start each game as a random team, ill share my tactics

spacemarines
right, thier big, their hard, and there awesome. as far as basic troop they own most things heres what i do. to start i build 2 scouts and an extra servitor, servitor starts on the barracks, scouts (using the shift button to stack orders) i send them to all the nearest defendable strategic points. by the time you have built your barracks you should have around 800 resources--- buy 4 squads of space marines. as they are building and when your up to 90 requisition use both servitors to start on listening posts. as each marine squad is made increase their squad by 1 or 2 depending on resources. once you have 3 squads you have enough to overthrow the nearest base with the 4th squad coming in as reserve. you can overpower the usual commander and 2 or 3 squads that the enemy has built by now but eventualy they wont have any units and you can murder them effortlessly as they spawn whilst whittling down thier buildings. during this your resources would have built up and you can start building properly either forcus on your armoury and get your boys heavy bolters and just keep up the wave, usually once you have defeated the 1st enemy all enemies have thier armies away trying to do the same, as long as your base isnt under attack you can get a decent foothold on the next base before thier army can return, by now heavy bolters are in play and its gonna be easy. from there its up to you what you do but i leave this tip: have 'pure' squad e.g 2 squads with all 4 upgrades as rocket launchers and assign them a squad number for ease of targeting vehicles. ( do this by selecting squads and pressing ctrl+ any number once you press the number on its own you will auto select all the squads you want.)

orks
art of defense lies in the ability to have an unlimted amount of waaarg! banners. once upgrades they buy you time and deal alotta damage. but cant be relied on alone near the end of the game when your enemy is at full strength and comes at you like water from a firemans hose. flashgitz are amazing, anywhere they hold normaly gets held for a long time, not front line boys through these are best left behind other squads they have the range to reap the death toll and the power. base taking is easy enough, loads 2 squads of nobs, 2 squads of infiltrated tank bustas and the odd shooter squad or falsh gitz in the squiggoth and thier transport vehicles, set to run (not attack) into the enemy bases centre, behind the majority of their defenses and deploy, select your tank bustas to target main buildings that will harm your assault like turrets, vehicles producing buildings and stuff you should be able to carve yourself a nice tasty chunk of their base before thier army returns at which point use your transport vehicles and squiggoths as bullet magnets whilst your nobs charge in and your gunners do what they do best. if all goes well, their armies will be destroyed, thier base production limited and thier strategy crippled at a cost to your assault force but you'll still have them pinned.

chaos
so many ways i wont name them all but i'll tell you my favourite, its called the zerker rush. this works again hard enemies in campaign and in custom games too, what you do is, 1 squad of cultists to shift/stack capture EVERYTHING tell them to do everything you can be bothered to tell them to, whilst your doing this build a barracks and with a 2nd worker, a power plant. once you have both of these you should have the resources to upgrade main base, (i know what your thinking, your undefended at this point but no1 can get an adequate enough force together in the time im talking about: roughly 1 minute and a half at this point) whilst your main base is upgrading and bearing in mind to keep about 400 req spare, you can now built a turret for piece of mind or listening posts to aid cash. once its upgraded, build the sacraficial circle with both workers and as soon as its built you zerkers can be produced, 2 squads should do it for the charge, dont bother reinforcing them yet it and unesessary drain on resources, go for about 3 squads THEN do the auto reinforce as they charge towards the enemy base. they will shred anything they find, try to avoid going for building if you dont have to until all enemy units are dead then put 1 squad on whatever listening post or turret might be bothering you and the others near a production building but not assigned to it so if anything pops out they will deal with them. you can also build a turret or 2 in thier base whilst you getting to grips with them, i doubt they'll notice. once their all done bring them back to your main base to defend whilst you build your army the way you want. also zerkers arnt only hardy and strong they are fearless which pretty much assures them victory.

eldar
ill keep this short, nothin but 2 fire prisms, 2 wraithlords, 9 squads of dark reapers and 3 bright lance platforms. bright lance platforms lower the defense of anything they come across the result being that once hit, an enemy vehicle will receive more damage from a squad of anti-infantry dark reapers than it would from firedragons without bright lance hits. plus because they are anti infantry they can deal with anything only tip is to have a seer council on ranged stance incase your fighting heavy enemies that will drag them down quickly leaving you blind to infiltrated units and also when commanding a charge from a distance remember that the bright lance platforms move alot quicker than the reapers and if they get thier 1st your advantage will go up in flames with them.

tau
TAU TAU TAU i dont think the creator have realised the computer-safe flaw in this team. if you gave a base with a bottle neck, or you know which way your enemy will come use this tactic and you will not lose. get yourself some fire warriors, chosen warriors from the etherial and 1 broadside accompanied by 2 pathfinder and 2 hammerheads, put all on stand ground stance so they wont move, then get 2 drone harbingers, set thier rally points to about half a screen in the direction that the enemy will attack from. then when the horde arrives use the right click auto recruit on thier drones, you can have a max of these so dont place too close where they will be unharmed or make them travel too far once you hit your max your drones will stop along with the auto recruit. the result is this;
the enemy attacks in force, the drones try to march right through thier ranks shooting as they do it but the enemy computer uses a 'attack move' to take your base meaning that when they come across the 1st drone they will stop to kill it, halting thier advance tempererily but seeing as 1 drone is followed by another, then another as the drones march continually to thier deaths the enemy's assault is completely halted. at this point the tau's superior range comes into play as you defensive line opens up on the enemy who are too distracted by the stream of drones moving through thier ranks, you can now start a fire an manouver style advance to push them back but i prefere just to leave them be, to run into the grinder. now at the same time build yourself fully upgraded stealth suits. these little fellas have weapon upgrades that do horrid, horrid things to vehicles and buildings, if you jump them into thier base in force, take out turrets that reveal you, you will wipe out thier base like it was made of card.

if you read all this your eyes must be hurting but these are tactics that work for me every time. few more notes if you want them on the other teams.

imperial guard - plasma guns. all the way and use your commissars.

dark eldar - either push straight for scourges ( anti infantry, anti vehicle, anti fair) they are fragile but if you use a fall back method thier long range does the job. (i.e. one front line squads jumps to the rear of the group, and that keeps going until the enemies been slaughtered.

necrons - flayed ones nuff said - deep striking, fear inducing, fearless squads that can jump out of danger and back to thier monolith to strike again.

sisters - micromanagement required, hotkey your anti vehicle teams so you can deliberatly target vehicles and leave the other ladys to shoot whatever they want.

I prefer the Tau, since (in my opinion) they have the best range & melee combination. Their normal fire warrior squad can outrange some structures/listening posts, and the kroot carnivore squad fills up the lack of melee. A missile gunship, a Crisis unit thing whatever, a hammerhead gunship, 2 fire warrior squads and 1 kroot carnivore squad is good enough to take on a medium base, with medium to medium-strong defence. However, when fighting orcs, it gets a bit complicated (not that it is too hard for a rookie). This is because of the melee attack of the orc, and when accompanied by their hero, a good sized force is recommended. Then again, simply using ONE greater knarloc is enough to take on any faction's base, even a large one. Though, supporting it is highly recommended if a lot of turrets and units are guarding the area. If that is the case, 2 krootox and one greater knarloc will solve all your problems. The Tau special unit is also rather good. It has 4000 health at first (medium difficulty) and around 5000 if you add a leader. That is more than the commander himself! All it takes to make them? your starting base structure and a barrack (the unit is the vespid stingwing strain). I've also read about the big orc squigith whatsoever thing, it only has about 7000 health. 1 krootox is enough, or one anti-vehicle unit suit thing the XV-something (put it on trenched mode). I've just been here yapping about the Tau. Another race I like is the Dark Eldar. This is because they are quite powerful and move very fast, and the best part is that their buildings don't require a builder to work on them. They build themselves. I won't go too much into detail for this team since I don't play with them a lot, so perhaps someone with more experience playing Dark Eldars can explain better.

"Originally Posted by Unregistered
Here are my tactics for each race...

Orks:
attack: Max out your number of Flash Gitz and send them in with either a few shoota boy squads or a looted tank or two.
Defence: Anything works, as long as there's alot of them.

Tau:
Attack: Make all the way through the tech-tree to the etherial. Then make his body guards. If your playing Dark Crusade then you can make as many of them as you want, but if your playing Soulstorm, they limit you to 1, which sucks. Then make some Hammerheads, some Fire Warriors, Some XV8's and XV88's, Krootox, and your ready to march.
Defence: Since they don't have turrets, just any unit with a ranged attack.

Necrons:
Attack: I don't really have a tactic for Necrons, I usually just send out everything that I can get my hands on.
Defence: Since Recruting them is free, a heap of Necron Warriors.

Eldar/Chaos/Sisters of Battle:
Attack: For all these I just mainly get to the mega unit (Avatar/Bloodthirster/Living Saint) and go out and kick their anus.
Defence: What beats a heap of turrets? Not much...

Imperial Guard:
Attack: I usually send out a heap of maxed Guardsmen squads, Kasherkins, Ogryns, Lemon Russ's, and possibly a Baneblade.
Defence: Always, I repeat ALWAYS use Heavy Weapons teams for defence when possible.

Dark Eldar:
Attack: Just send out everything that can actually use to attack!
Defence: A heap of warriors, mandrakes and your Haemoncules.

Overall Tips:
Always, max out your squads, never send out half made squads.
Never, send out your commander, especially for orks because you have to wait until you have an Orky Fort to reinforce him.
Always, have a unit that can detect infiltrated units in both your offence and defence armies.

Hope u got somthing out of that. reading that must have taken a while..."

I disagree with not sending out your commander. Yes you need to keep him safe, but what action will he see while defending your base? Get the necessary requirements, then just send him along with the troops. It increases the overall damage and survivability. Especially for the Tau (here I go again, I am a Tau supporter ), Or'es'ka (your commander) has ridiculously long range, about as long as the missile gunship, so he will only be attacking units/buildings while your kroot units charge forward. I especially HIGHLY recommend this for campaign, as the enemy (even on easy) has a rather large army (I'm referring to Orcs) with their commander supporting them.

A few tips when using Tau:
-Capture relics, strategic points, etc with the XV15 stealth team (fully upgraded with 3 units, 1 commander and 1 time weapon upgrade)
-Use the Vespid Stingwing Strain to guard your base
-Missile Gunships are good at offence and defence, just make sure you keep them at a distance
-Unless you are desperate or just plain idiotic, do not send a Barracuda fighter against a horde of enemy infantry and vehicles on its own. Reinforce it with SOMETHING. Even if you do reinforce the Barracudas, always remember THEY ARE FRAGILE.
-A devilfish troop carrier is great for scouting and defence. It is invisible, and it can attack while staying invisible.
-If you build an ethereal, do not use him to attack, instead, keep him safe. This is because if he dies, morale and another stat I forgot drastically decreases for an amount of time.
-Fire Warrior bodyguards are VERY powerful and useful. Have at least 2 (1 from Ethereal and 1 from commander), and keep them ALIVE
-All Kroot species units for melee ONLY (not that you have a choice)
-Build a vehicle beacon as soon as you can
-ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS send your troops in groups (except for the stealth team, they HAVE to go alone to avoid drawing attention)

does anyone specialize or know how to play Sisters of battle reallay well?
any tips or advice besides bringin out the bloody saint?

Yes i do they are not that hard to play really all you have to do is get a lot of rescources and start upgrating your troops with the amoury and that other building that you built is for your commander i think but if you do a certain upgrade everything about upgrading or building is way faster

if your playing as the imperial gaurd always have a good defence and then when you can bring in the baneblade and you are sure to win

No it isnt because i played as the orks before and the enemy were the imperial gaurds and they had a baneblade and i took it out because i was actully building up my nobs while sending my shoota boyz and sluggaz to da fight and they had a bane blade and i sent my nobs to attack the defencless bae the bane blade came back and i flanked it with my tank bustaz and i destroyed it and i lost 5 nobs but i won the match because i did what i did

lol i sorta aggree with all of u. i must say that baneblade fails alot...sorry.. Orks have great fire power. just get flash gitz. shootaz lots of them..have ya squigith. battle tanks ready...sit back and shoot those tau..they will b to worried bout the squig and there for u can out shoot them! on the other hand i play all races...bbut if i vs u and i am playing tau watch out.................WE ARE HELLIONS LORDS OF FLYING DEATH ARMY!!!!!!!....................

you know what, any tau player would know that the gnarloc beats the squig and so they wouldn't be too worried

i have good fun wth all races (especaly tau and eldar) and therefore know good tactics for all.

chaos. cultist squad to take posts(they are usles at fighting never rely on them.) build a squad of marines then genarators ect till u hav a good enuf defence and good recorce(by this time you should hav done both you upgrades)from your sacred circle do sorcerer upgades then build one(trust me he will destroy anything that come near him) then and then start building ur obliterators preadators and khorn then tada! youv crushed your enamy(you can have your bloodthirster come out but i dont like him cuz he is slow and dusnt give much flare in battle)

tau. (easy to use) just make fire warriors hammer heads and broadsides and youl win easy(dont need to detail that 1

eldar.(my fav) first thing to do build a webway portel near your base and hav cloak on it(always build webway portels after that to keep all you buildings cloak the enamy wont come at you with deceters until he is ready to proper attack) like chaos make guardians and make them caputre things and also build generators.
upgrade your things make ur soul shrine then get your relic. build an avatar back him up with a farseer(attatch to a full seer council) and lodes of howling banchees. for tanks id advise wraith lords there punch agenst outher tanks and flamers will realy help you against the enamy.

this is the main part of the stratergy. use your bonesingers teleport to get near you enamys base(but far enough so they can survive) build a webway gate and cloak it. put all your troops in there then march your avatar and wraithlord towards the middle of there base. then let the webway gate let its men out and charge. they shouldnt last long against all those swords and flamers.

ty for readying(if u managed to read all that lol

I Really needed help with the eldar ive played every other race and easily won but with eldar i struggle to get+keep 1 territory, its painful seeing my troops getting slaughted by necrons and spaces marines(Space marines in dark crusade) so thanks for the tips. Defend till i get avatar of khaine.

*You need a race that can have atleast 5 of the new vehicles, Tau: Barracuda, Chaos: Hell Talon, ECT.*

Territories: The best and easiest way to win that i've always found successful is to set up a good defensive position, after a wait a while, I max out the upgrades for troops, buildings, ECT. Once I get a building that can produce machines I always get 5 of the newest ones. After I have them all, I send them all out to destroy enemy buildings and turrets and such. It usually works after the 1-3rd try.

HQ's/Final Race Battles: Same thing with the territory plan, you must have a good defensive position and get the 5 vehicles, also, usually with most HQ's they have production sights, you must take the 5 vehicles and take them out. 1: It makes defending easier, and 2: It makes their force weaker. After I take out the main sights, I go in and destroy all of them.

every Races in Soulstorm are strong and required the ability of the players who playing it, my tips only for IG (Imperial Guard), which is focusing on defenses and at the same time, range attacks like Basilisk required. Slowly annihilate the enemies, no matter range or melee. Mines are useful, build it as many as possible which will be used on early game so the enemies fill face death as they come to your tough base( as the enemies will not be fully upgraded at this time). that's the only tips I can give you for this time..

Who ever said ors we're the best class...... Well I had imp. Guard and ors go at it.... I just put an assassin in their base and he took out so many of their people and only got spotted by big mek....... I just sent some guardsmen and the big meek was all gone.

I play the imperial guard and the chaos space marine and the regular space marines. I used to play the ors..... Frankly it got way to boring. Their numbers get to big and it becomes to easy. But on the other hand with any of the three races I play, I can make an awesome defensive line. Not even a squiggoth has gotten through and the neurons are super easy.... Just but a bane blade in front of him, have some ogryns and a entrenched machine gunner and the neuron lord is no problem at all. Or with the other to I play a defensive line with some turrets and heavy bolters has always done some good. Well I have my tactics and they work for me. Sorry if they don't work for you.

Orks:
attack: Max out your number of Flash Gitz and send them in with either a few shoota boy squads or a looted tank or two.
Defence: Anything works, as long as there's alot of them.

Tau:
Attack: Make all the way through the tech-tree to the etherial. Then make his body guards. If your playing Dark Crusade then you can make as many of them as you want, but if your playing Soulstorm, they limit you to 1, which sucks. Then make some Hammerheads, some Fire Warriors, Some XV8's and XV88's, Krootox, and your ready to march.
Defence: Since they don't have turrets, just any unit with a ranged attack.

Necrons:
Attack: I don't really have a tactic for Necrons, I usually just send out everything that I can get my hands on.
Defence: Since Recruting them is free, a heap of Necron Warriors.

Eldar/Chaos/Sisters of Battle:
Attack: For all these I just mainly get to the mega unit (Avatar/Bloodthirster/Living Saint) and go out and kick their anus.
Defence: What beats a heap of turrets? Not much...

Imperial Guard:
Attack: I usually send out a heap of maxed Guardsmen squads, Kasherkins, Ogryns, Lemon Russ's, and possibly a Baneblade.
Defence: Always, I repeat ALWAYS use Heavy Weapons teams for defence when possible.

Dark Eldar:
Attack: Just send out everything that can actually use to attack!
Defence: A heap of warriors, mandrakes and your Haemoncules.

Overall Tips:
Always, max out your squads, never send out half made squads.
Never, send out your commander, especially for orks because you have to wait until you have an Orky Fort to reinforce him.
Always, have a unit that can detect infiltrated units in both your offence and defence armies.

Hope u got somthing out of that. reading that must have taken a while...

For the sisters of battle defense part, their turrets don't seem to do alot of damage, they seem to focus on breaking morale rather than deal damage, you're gonna need a celestian squad and a battle sister squad both reinforced and armed, arm battle sisters with heavy bolters, the turrets will deal with morale.

this might be a noob question, but how do you change the starting location for the player?
like u always start as one, but what if i wanna start at 2 etc

when you get onto the the place where you pick players,teams etc go onto change skirmish options it should have starting location change it to random and start you may start at 1 but you can start at 2(the game picks where players start) hope that helped

I have to be honest here and say there are "no best classes" because all classes have weaknesses and strongholds to other classes. like I find Necrons are weak against eldar. because eldar have superior speed and can just make a fast regroup before the necrons will never reach you. or throw the necrons around with a few explosions. well you can allready say nite nite :P

tho I find Space Marine the base of the game. they have no real weaknesses but no real strengths either. Orks as allready said weak to stealth is pretty much true having 4 spacemarine scout teams with fully upgraded sniper can take out 8-16 orks in a blink of an eye and then dissipear again!

Else I never had any luck with Tau vs Orks either. where I find the Tau superior if they use all their fancy stuff. which the orks lacks and is maybe their biggest weakness! straight ahead and no tactical matter.

also seen some really nice tactics with longrange spacesister tanks with invisible morons in the front! lost to that tactic all the time using orks, spacemarine, chaos. but manage to pown that tactic a few times with Tau and Nekro, since nekro in close combat is invinsible and they have their lords which can takeover enemy tanks witha click of a button